Chapter Ten: The Fairy Tale

Patch, Vale Kingdom, Sanus

And thus Jaune Arc, the Hero of Remnant, won the secret war against the Queen of the Grimm… But they didn't live happily ever after…

But why? You said Uncle Jaune won?

He did… But the Queen of the Grimm… My grandma wasn't evil… She was hurt… And people say and do bad things when they are hurt… Your uncle, your aunts, and your grandma knew that… And we want the future of our family to know that… Because it's not what other people think about your family that matters… It's what you think about them that does.

I-I think I understand… I don't think she was bad… I think she was hurt like you said… And I feel sad that she was…

I do too sometimes…

Twenty-nine-year-old Lavender Arc kissed the top of her six-year-old daughter's head and gave her a small smile.

Salem Arc smiled before she closed her tired dark blue eyes and hugged their old family dog Zwei who had already fallen asleep.

Lavender watched her and hummed a song her mother once hummed to her as a child called Home. She thought about that day twenty years ago. The day she first saw her maternal grandmother. Salem. The Queen of the Grimm. She had been terrified and her older brother stood between them.

But her mother had killed her… They tried to be there for her everyday and she tried to hide it but they knew she never got over that day. And they had moved to Patch to start over.

But when she passed three years ago, they all tried to forget the time after that day. She tried to remember the days from before.

When their father returned home and hugged them all. When their mother would read them all stories. Her sisters had grown past that. But not her. Her best memories were of the stories she told. And her favorite story had been about her brother…

He had grown in the year he had been gone. She remembered saying goodbye to him before he left Atlas. And when he returned, he looked more like their dad than before. His eyes were older and tired. And after that day, they had dulled a bit. That had been the saddest thing for them all… That he had grown up too fast and fought for them…

But he found his happiness. They all did.

She never found out what happened to Cinder, Emerald, or Mercury. But her brother said they had sailed to Mantle to help the Schnees rebuild the old kingdom.

His parents-in-law each got back together. Her Grandpa Crow and Grandma Summer got back together and returned to work at Beacon Academy. And her Grandpa Taiyang and Grandma Raven did too and he returned to Sanctum while she stayed a huntress, traveling with Vernal and Yang.

Her sister-in-laws. Ruby, Yang, Weiss, and Blake. Ruby had become a blacksmith, working at the forge in Beacon. Yang became a huntress like her parents. Weiss had taken over the Schnee Dust Company with her Grandma Willow, Winter, and Whitley helping her. They had completely changed the reputation of the company and the Kingdom of Mantle rose. Whitley and Penny had even married. Blake became a member of the council of Menagerie which was now recognized as the official fifth kingdom of Remnant, making her Grandpa Ghira and Grandma Kali proud.

Her sisters all found their path in life. Most of them married and with children but those who hadn't and didn't were content. They had each other. And of course, that included their adoptive sister Trivia. She and her had been the ones to prevent Jaune from closing himself off from his friends and family.

But after that day, Jaune had mostly stayed in Vale to father his children while his wives worked to better the five kingdoms. To the world, he had been another face that fought against the massive Grimm Invasion in Vale but to those who knew what happened. To those that knew him, he had been the unknown Hero of Remnant.

Lavender looked at her now sleeping daughter. She blew out the candle beside her bed and stood before she left her bedroom. Excited for tomorrow. To see her family and friends again after months apart.

And her brother, Jaune Arc.

Her hero.

A/N: (Warning: Long Rant)

One of my favorite scenes from RWBY (or early good RWBY) was the first scene shared between Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang. Ruby comments about reading fairy tales as a kid and wanting to be a hero. Blake then tells her that fairy tales aren't like the real world. And Ruby simply says that's why they're there at Beacon.

This scene embodied everything RWBY was about. Going against impossible odds to do what's right and realizing down the line that doing good because it's right isn't exactly easy. And I wish that conversation had come up later because what exactly does it mean to even be a hero?

Ozpin/Ozma compromised with Salem after everything that happened despite knowing her end goal. My own way of explaining why she waited so long. Grandpa Arc and Grandpa Schnee compromised with the Branwen Tribe because they knew Salem was the greater threat to Remnant. And those revelations shocked Jaune because he only knew one side of his family. The side he and his sisters were allowed to know. But he didn't hate them for it because he believed they all did what they did because they thought they were right. And when the time came for him to compromise for the safety of his family and friends, he refused because he couldn't.

And I think that's the heart of this story.

Truthfully, I had prepared a different A/N because I knew the last few chapters would disappoint people. The lack of a final battle, the lack of a final fight, and the Salem Arc fan theory. Funnily enough, I remember when I first had the idea for this story and knew Jaune would be the center, I told myself I would not do it because I thought it was really bad. But I knew for this story, I had to justify Jaune's family coming up again and again and Salem's interest in him. If it had just been because of his family legacy alone, it might have felt like a waste of time because realistically, Salem would have had him killed.

But I think the direction I went and wrote fit the story I wanted to tell. The Arc family personal problems became more interesting to me. I never intended that or even planned for any of Jaune's family members to have a large role in the story but then Neo joined the ride early, Jaune knew sign language, and the story just went its own course.

And I'm glad it did even when I know I made a lot of mistakes. I had some things that worked like Jaune and Neo's friendship. And some things that didn't work like a more satisfying ending with more details to the history behind Ozpin/Ozma and Salem; Neo being a better love interest to Jaune than RWBY; more roles to other character's; etc. I tried to be subtle with some ideas like Salem, Ozpin, and the Arc's last meeting being nine years before the start of the story when Lavender was born with Juniper having named her that because she unconsciously was thinking about her mother's dress when she was a girl. Things like that could have been done better. But there were some things that I was happy with. Like the last chapter.

Lavender's first encounter with Grandma Salem was terrifying. Her family had changed after that and her mother died, never really healing from what happened. She had hid all of it when her father Ozma/Ozpin died but couldn't when her mother Salem confronted her and died by her hands. Because that was the price of her brother being a hero but only to those that knew the truth. But that's reality. Sometimes there are no happily ever after.

But then years later, she's married and she has her own daughter who is told everything that happened so she can decide whether her great grandmother Salem was evil or not. And because of her mother Lavender, her uncle Jaune, her aunt Neo/Trivia, and her great grandpa Crow, she can grow up and make up her own mind about her family without lies or secrets. And you know what, I can't think of a better ending than that.

I was half tempted to end this story until I could rewrite it but I found something worth telling in this story and decided to see it to its end. And I'm glad I did. Even if I regret some characters not getting larger roles, dying early, or just not appearing at all. But this story was fun to write. From the addition of Neo to the pirate battle to the fight between STRC and Tyrian to the final confrontation to Jaune's struggles allowing Lavender to get her fairy tale ending.

Anyway, I plan to take a long break from writing for personal reasons. But I plan to rewrite this story closer to canon and rewrite other stories later this year. I can already tell you most of this story will not be the same but that's all I'm willing to say for now. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment if you did.

Until then.